| FOUR FISH |
 |
|
 |
|
|
The Adventures of YoYo: YoYo and Wesfish go Offshore Greetings once again sports-fans, time for yet another episode of Adventures With YoYo. Today's travels see ol' Uncle Yo employing his partner in crime from the MBC, Wesfish, in a man-on-man offshore plastics fishing duel to the death aboard the Trident IV, with Smithy at the helm.
With perfect weather throughout the week we were worried the trip may be cancelled due to a change with 20-knot wind predictions looming. But the morning saw us set off in clear skies and 10-knot winds from Mooloolaba, heading south-east to some inner marks off Caloundra.
Wesfish had armed himself with the ubiquitous 7" Gulp Jerkshad in Nuke Chicken colour while yours truely had decided to go against the grain with the 7" Tandoori Chicken colour. I have this thing about red on lures - it works.
The first drift saw YoYo hook up quickly but only to get dropped about 10 seconds later. Almost immediately Wes' drag sprang into lifeand he boated the first fish of the day, a nice little squire, followed by myself boating a small squire at about 38cm. I whispered 'send your mum to look for you' in his ear and sent him back home.
Looking to keep my title intact between the two fo us, after beating Wes in his own boat at the MBC, I got to work on the Tandoori Chickens and was soon hooked up solid and getting a tour of the Sunshine Coast from something with considerable grunt! We called it for a big snapper but were not disappointed to see a rock solid 60cm grassy sweetlip come up to the next. Following this I boated a maori cod while Wes, Captain Consistency, on the port side continued to boat regular squire.
A resetting of drift spots by Smithy came about and shortly after the Tandoori Chicken proved irresistable yet again as YoYo got hammered...
ThockWWWWZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Up to the net came another grassy, this one measuring in at 52cm.
Wes then boated a 35cm maori cod as well followed by more squire until YoYo got absolutely violated by what we all could only assume was a pretty big snapper. There was more drag getting pulled out than at mardi gras time, but unfortunately after 20 seconds or so the hook was spat.
Pickings then started to get lean and the wind strengthened to 15-20 knots. Wes and I both changed our soft plastics, he went to a large Gulp Wriggler and I went first to an Atomic 5" and then a Gulp 7" Neon Watermelon.
Wes got another squire but I got nothing.
I decided it was time to switch back to the Tandoori Chicken and sure enough - thumpWWWZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - a very feisty fight occured from a 47cm model squire.
Wes then switched to a 60g Lucanus jig and quickly found it to someone's liking around 25m down. A short, solid fight ensued until the hooks were spat before colour was seen. Disappointing.
The bit really slowed after this and repeated drifts yielded only small sporadic hits. By this time the wind had picked up to a consistent 18-20 knots so we decided to call it a day.
Smithy had us back at the boat ram at 11am - Wes with a brace of squire and YoYo taking home a PB squire at 47cm, a PB grassy at 60cm and his younger brother at 52cm.
|
|
|